Moments that changed your outlook on Fire Emblem

[Von Ithipathachai]

Share some moments that changed your outlook on playing Fire Emblem, or just on the series in general.

I have a couple.  Prior to watching the video below, I had a very rookie mindset in which I put way too much emphasis on stats and not on overall utility when judging units.

Another one was using Charlotte in Fates.  Some of you here may have noticed I have a strong soft spot for axe infantry units.  This was not always the case.  At first, I was kind of indifferent to the individual weapons of the triangle, but Charlotte truly made me fall in love with the Berserker class thanks to her big, sexy Strength stat and Critical Hit rates.  Genealogy of the Holy War and Warriors (with its "too many swords" controversy) also made me feel a lot more pity for axe infantry for their overall poorer treatment throughout the series and caused me to develop a (probably irrational) dislike for swords, at least when it comes to Fire Emblem.

[smgrinus]

I think Fire Emblem stopped being a good strategy game after Radiant Dawn.  Durability, tiered objectives, map design, the weapon triangle all changed and streamlined into something different just for the sake of being different. Awakening was enjoyable due to the story but the map design/objectives were dull/repetitive. Echoes tried to bring back what was good but ends up being even being even worse in map design. Fates is the worst for the inept conversations and the decision to add throwing clubs into the mix which makes absolutely no sense. 

@Michealaar The weapon being real or not isn't the problem I had with it. I just felt it didn't fit very well into the weapon triangle. It's just my personal experience after playing so please don't be offended. 

Edited May 10, 2018 by grinus
explanation

[Avarice Shadow]

I remember being unable to beat Shadow Dragon on H1 and getting frustrated because I wasn't good enough at the game. I stopped playing for a while and eventually decided to YouTube someone playing on H5(I forgot what his name was) because I thought it was impossible back then. I was so shocked to see how he did it and I decided to try again. That taught me to try and think outside the box more and not give up at first glance. 

When I first joined this site, I used(and still do) lurk around a lot and I found out about LTCing. Watched a few videos here and there and was impressed by how people could do that. Years later I discovered Dondon151's YouTube channel and watched his FE6 run with Mekkah. Having them explain what was happening as they played was really helpful and it's what triggered me to start searching harder for more information. 

After some digging, I found a reddit post by Dondon151 called "how to become a better Fire Emblem player." So much of what was written made sense to me and I was guilty of a lot of the bad player tendencies he spoke of. I think that's when things started to click and the way I view the game changed. Now when I see something difficult I enjoy figuring it out and learning. I don't really get frustrated when I have to reset after a long map, instead I ask myself "what did I learn?" And expand from there. 

[Michelaar]

44 minutes ago, grinus said:

I think Fire Emblem stopped being a good strategy game after Radiant Dawn.  Durability, tiered objectives, map design, the weapon triangle all changed and streamlined into something different just for the sake of being different. Awakening was enjoyable due to the story but the map design/objectives were dull/repetitive. Echoes tried to bring back what was good but ends up being even being even worse in map design. Fates is the worst for the inept conversations and the decision to add throwing clubs into the mix which makes absolutely no sense. 

Of all the things you can bring up about fates you bring up Throwing Clubs, which is an actual weapon, as a bad point against it? That makes less sense than anything else tbh.

Anyway, the Fandom itself really changed my view on Fire emblem, whether thats a good thing or not, I dunno.

[NinjaMonkey]

Shadow Dragon and Fates (even though I've never played it) have killed most of the interest that I had in the series after I played Radiant Dawn, even though I enjoyed Awakening immensely.

[Perkilator]

37 minutes ago, NinjaMonkey said:

Shadow Dragon and Fates (even though I've never played it) have killed most of the interest that I had in the series after I played Radiant Dawn, even though I enjoyed Awakening immensely.

Well, in contrast to this, Echoes peaked my interest in the series.

Also, it made me realize that Durability isn’t always necessary.

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

I actually got more interested in FE after playing FE7. It's not my favorite, per se, but my love did grow from it.

[De Geso]

Playing Fates made me realize that if you listen to idiots on the internet you'll miss out on something you really love.

Playing Awakening made me realize that sometimes idiots on the internet are right and things are bad.

Playing FE7 made me realize that I should have played it instead of whatever else I was playing when I was 8.

Playing Shadow Dragon made me realize that story is the least important part of Fire Emblem to me.

Playing FE4 made me realize that nostalgia is a hell of a drug and sometimes things just aren't very good.

Re-playing FE6 made me realize that sometimes you should just give games a second chance.

Playing FE8 made me realize that L'Arachel is the best girl.

Edited May 10, 2018 by YouSquiddinMe

[Tuvy2]

11 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

thanks to her big, sexy Strength stat 

Nice save.

I used to think that people played this series for fun

[Tuvy]

2 minutes ago, Tuvy2 said:

Nice save.

I used to think that people played this series for fun

Boy were we wrong

[Sasori]

I used to think skill wasn't very important since hitting enemies was rarely a problem even when a unit did't have high skill. That was before I had to stop using Nyx as a combat unit since she could barely hit anything. So the rest of the game she was glued to Niles for the magic boost instead.

[Reality]

1: Awakening kind of made me retroactively check the difficulty of all the game's before itt... Instictively I wanted to prove that they used to be hard, but rvrn in 2013 I found that most of the series (I only played lcalized until a 2-3 years later) was easy, maybe not as easy, but close enough in degree that I didn't find the need to think through combat.

2: I think (in a very early post) I contest that FE is worse than almost all other SRPGs, because I was enamored of the class systems and active commands and such in games like Disgaea, FFT, Front Mission, Arc the Lad Trilogy, and so on.

3: Watching my niece play Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and get slowed down a ton by having to remember the facing system changed my mind somewhat and made me appreciate FE's stripped down design.Later I kind of noticed that most of  FFT, Disgaea, etc all, kind of also have the low blind difficulty curve (and lower with past experience) that Fire Emblem had. 

4: I used to buy into the "FE5 is the hardest ever" mentality, even after the first time I played through it, but during and after the second time I played it I noticed just how large and reckless you can be with enemy phases in the first 2/3rds of the game, the way most enemies don't achieve AS comparable to player units until about Chapter 18 (with the 0-2 AS during most of the first 10 chapters being the most absurd example) I still enjo it, especially compared to the games 4 games before and immediately after it (1-4 and 6-9)

5: When I first got into Western CRPGs, I got deeply, deeply angry at Fire Emblem for it's insistence on stripping things down mechanically. Much moreso than I did with the #2, because this time it was coupled with the knowledge that the foundations of their mechanics were laid at the same time with (and even earlier) than the very first FE .  

6: I think I made a concsious effort to avoid horse units in my second fire emblem game (Path of Radiance) because I had literally used all the cavaliers and duessel in Sacred Stones. 

7: Playing Wesnoth made me realize one of the more formal reasons why I don't like how big enemy phase combat is in Fire Emblem. I feel like in fire emblem, I spend my time planning out ways to convince the enemy to commit suicide, to the extent where I kill more enemies by "waiting turn at them" than I do by actually attacking. Granted "wait turn" can be done aggresivelly and pro-actively with me moving my units into the enemy territory, but it's still fundamentally about total player control over enemy movement. 

8: A Wesnoth (and to a smaller extent Advance Wars) made me appreciate a certain kind of map design where you slowly gained a positional advantage and grinded down an opponet with a superior income, and how obviously, the perma-death made ever attemting such a thing in Fire Emblem unthinkable. 

9: In FE5, I thought that enemy capture made the game harder during my first playthrough, but after accidentally getting lara  captured early in my second playthrough (chapter 4x) I started intentionally forcing the enemy to capture stripped units (mostly the thieves, sometimes mages, sometimes leaf) to halve their stats and severely reduce the number of enemies in a group I had to fight. 

10: I used to think that angelic robes were the least useful of the stat up consumables, but after a while (I think during my first FE6 HM) I grew to consider the best and most important.

[Von Ithipathachai]

43 minutes ago, Tuvy2 said:

I used to think that people played this series for fun

In all seriousness, if you're a Fire Emblem character, you'll probably find your way into my heart more quickly if you're a good unit than you would if you simply had a nice body.

Having lots of Defense will also probably help you a lot.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Von Ithipathachai

[NekoKnight]

After Radiant Dawn, I lost interest in the series for awhile. Shadow Dragon bored me to tears and I thought the Awakening characters looked dumb, so i didn't try the game until long after its release. I got back into the series around the time people were speculating about Fates (what a glorious, naive time).
 

Also, before I didn't really look up character data to see their growths or really any game data. Now I want to know as much as I can about the game system.

[Troykv]

I think the first real big change I have in mindset, was the moment I discovered that in most of the games (except FE3 and FE5), the end-game it's very permissive with the stat-line you can have, and the games usually gives you resources to defeat the final chapters... and alongside that, I understand why the Jeigans are so good despite being low growth units that live of the class change bonifications... They're helping you in the only moment of the game where you can't cheese stuff, and the game becomes faster using them.

[Zkitty8]

FE7 was the first game I played that didn't have casual mode, and that made me realize that permadeath wasn't that scary since the game is designed around it and you can avoid most deaths with careful planning. At some point when playing it and FE8 I also realized that it's really important to check enemy weapons and ranges.

When I played FE4 I learned to appreciate dancers a lot more. Before I didn't see the point in using them when you could just have another attacker, but since 4 lets you field everyone I saw that the dancers were actually super helpful and often saved me from losing a character and having to restart the whole chapter.

And I think it was from watching the Fire Emblem Pitfalls videos that I learned that using the prepromoted units is okay sometimes. Before that I avoided using them at all even if it made the game a lot harder, but now I'm not afraid to use them if I'm having trouble.

Edit because I thought of another one: Near the end of my first FE7 playthrough when I finally put together that sages and druids can use staves and that I could have been using Canas and Erk as extra healers the whole time. After that I started paying attention to what weapons units can use after promotion.

Edited May 10, 2018 by Zkitty8

[Hawkwing]

The first time I saw Fire Emblem mentioned outside of Smash Bros was, I kid you not, through Roy making a Top Ten Manliest Video Game Characters list (at #8, but still). I'll link the moment in a spoiler, but it's something I still remember him by.

Spoiler

I guess I should note that the guy didn't take the stereotypical route for judging a characters "manliness," and this is an earlier video of his.

I was fortunate with Awakenings support system writing-wise, as I learned early on that the quality of the supports would range from some of the best conversations in the series to some of the worst, which gave me a pretty balanced view on the cast and writing as a whole.

When I heard that fighters and knights were supposed to be among the worse classes in the series, I subconsciously decided to use them even more. It reminds me of when I heard that capturing planets was a waste of time in the Master of Orion games, so I decided to capture planets whenever I could, and realized it was an actually solid strategy. Same thing happened in Fire Emblem; I found uses for knights and fighters that I wouldn't have discovered otherwise.

I also vowed to do my best never to bench anyone unless I absolutely had to after learning that such a practice existed.

My journey researching Gaiden after Echoes was announced is almost worth a topic on it's own, but needless to say, it's how I discovered the site, it led to me finding out about emulators, and it's why Shadows of Valentia is still my favorite Fire Emblem games.

[Cysx]

12 hours ago, NekoKnight said:

I got back into the series around the time people were speculating about Fates (what a glorious, naive time).

"Sigh" Tell me about it.

I mean Fates did deliver on some of its promises as far as I'm concerned, but let's just say many promises were made. Anyway.

At some point during my first Radiant Dawn playthrough, I realized that this had become my favorite video game series ever, which probably wouldn't change anytime soon.

By observing the clash of fanbases following Awakening's explosion, I realized how easily influenced myself and many others had become on the internet.

At some point when compiling data for Fates, I realized that without dataminers, we'd essentially be playing these games like clueless kids in the 90s, and that the devs at IS would be perfectly okay with that.

At some point while playing SoV and after quite a bit of Mila's turnwheel abuse(also when reading up that it was meant to act as replacement for Phoenix mode), I realized that my ability to enjoy playing casual mode was probably much higher than I liked to pretend it was.

Edited May 11, 2018 by Cysx

[NekoKnight]

3 hours ago, Cysx said:

At some point while playing SoV and after quite a bit of Mila's turnwheel abuse(also when reading up that it was meant to act as replacement for Phoenix mode), I realized that my ability to enjoy playing casual mode was probably much higher than I liked to pretend it was.

I'm a passionate Classic fan and I used the turnwheel on occasion because SoVs gameplay was a bit of a slog. I didn't want to reset just because the 7th skeleton to attack my character that turn landed a 2% critical hit.

[Shadow Mir]

The only thing that comes to mind is that Shadow Dragon very very nearly made me give up on Fire Emblem altogether. It also made me realize I cannot trust IS with remakes.

[Re: The weirdo.]

just playing fates conquest lunatic at all made me so much better at the game in general 

playing through fe7 again made me realize how much i fucking hate tutorials.

playing fe4 has got me better at not hoarding weapons in general and that balance is optional.

watching kirbymastahs Speedruns of fe7/8 pulled me out of the "pre-promotes are bad" mindset for good.

all of mekkah pitfalls videos FIXED me

echoes got me to realize just how bad fates/awakening 's plots were and had me questioning why i even liked them.

fe6 hard mode got me to realize just why i like the gameplay of FE so much; that is, because dog-piling enemies is extraordinarily satisfying.

stumbling upon serenes forest condensed my world a little.

in hindsight, i dont remember when i came to the realization that mounts are way to useful in comparison to infantry

[thecrimsonflash]

after soloing awakening with robin paired with chrom I realized just how easy and terribly awakening is

fates taught me why awakening ruined the skill system

replaying the tellius games for the hundredth time reminded me how much I hate pairup

attempting a second playthrough of shadow dragon really reminded me just how boring and forgettable it was

smash bros. 4 made me realize that I really never liked robin as a character but it was only his class that was worth anything

serenes forest forums has really let me see every section of the fan base that I despise with every fiber of my being and those that I actually kind of like

SOV really made me appreciate kaga's mechanics

Edited May 13, 2018 by thecrimsonflash

[DragonFlames]

Fates made me realize how much I hated weapon durability in past games. It also made me realize how foolish it is to jump on any kind of hype train. Fates was my personal No Man's Sky in that regard.

Echoes made me realize how cumbersome and unnecessary a weapon triangle really is. It also made me realize how superfluous playable axe users really are.

Awakening made me try older games (older than PoR at the very least) through its Einherjar mechanic. It also made me realize that I dislike all pre-Thracia character designs.

Playing Stella Glow made me realize that having more than 10 playable characters isn't a reason to focus on only a few of them.
It's also Stella Glow's fault that I consider this a problem in Fire Emblem that needs to go away. All characters should get their time in the spotlight and not just introduced and then disappear from the story forever to make room for more Royal wankfests.

Playing Etrian Odyssey Untold and Untold 2 made me realize that an Avatar as a protagonist can work really, really well if it's done right and how much Fates screwed that part up.

Joining this forum has given me back hope that there are in fact decent people out there.

[Opdepov]

The ever increasing amount of fan service in Fates and heroes made me realize I might no longer be this game's target audience.

At least I can still replay the older games I guess. 

[Loki Laufeyson]

On May 10, 2018 at 4:26 AM, Michelaar said:

 

Anyway, the Fandom itself really changed my view on Fire emblem, whether thats a good thing or not, I dunno.

This is a huge mood. 

Finally getting the chance to actually play FE4 made me realize that this game has the FE plot ive been wanting and waiting for. That, and we need a remake of it, yesterday.